Update on our sustainability commitments

Earlier this year we became co-founders of the Tech Zero coalition, a group of businesses committed to taking climate action as part of the UNFCC Race To Zero. Since then, we have been busy launching multiple new climate action initiatives. We began by measuring our greenhouse gas emissions for 2020 and publishing them in our inaugural Climate Impact Report. 

Next, we then took a group of GoCardless team members out on our first Environmental Action Day, where we planted >600 native wildflowers and hedgerows to help a community project protect and enhance biodiversity. At the start of Winter, we also organised our very first Climate Action Workshop which brought together both internal GoCardless team members, customers and other businesses to drive collaborative action. Recordings of the sessions, including a GoCardless Focus panel, a session looking at the importance of biodiversity and communities, through to a climate hackathon can be found here. 

Now in the run-up to Christmas, we are giving away 12 Gifts of Climate Action to help businesses and individuals take action through tools, resources, and some great prizes. We're also very excited to be giving our customers a very special Christmas Gift this year by supporting Rebalance Earth on their behalf. ReBalance Earth is a wonderful project, protecting rainforest elephants and the ecosystem services they provide, creating a positive impact on climate, biodiversity and communities. 

Ahead of Cop26 - where both Catherine Birkett and I were invited to join panel sessions with the British Chambers of Commerce discussing the role of businesses and collaboration for Net-Zero - we became signatories of Business Ambition for 1.5°C, a global coalition of businesses committed to setting Science-Based Targets to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C. This means we have committed to setting both short-term and long-term emissions reductions targets in line with the Science-Based Target Net Zero standard, which was published in October. As a minimum, we will set short term emissions reduction targets for the next 5-10 years in line with a 1.5degree pathway, then continue to reduce our emissions to a residual level and reach net-zero by 2050 at the latest; in line with the SBTi Net-Zero Standard. In the year of Net-Zero, any residual emissions will be neutralised via removal and storage. 

We are now developing our Sustainability Strategy and Net-Zero Action Plan which will set out our targets, and - crucially - how we achieve them. We aim to publish these updated targets in January 2022 along with tools and resources for other businesses to do the same.